Six years ago, the teenage Aberdeen striker appeared to have the world at his feet. The 15-year-old had been a stand-out performer and captain as Scotland achieved success in the Victory Shield competition featuring all the home nations, still the last group to achieve such a feat at Under-16 level. Rangers and Celtic were knocking at his door, not to mention Bolton Wanderers and Manchester United, who relayed the offer of a trial via his Scotland schools manager Stewart Taylor.

The trial never materialised. Instead, Bagshaw signed for his hometown club, with the confident expectation that they would provide the best chance of first team football. It must have come as a bit of a shock, then, when he left 
Pittodrie four years later, without having kicked a ball in anger. Another two years later – after 15 starts and three goals for Peterhead – he was released again. Those who saw him going toe-to-toe with Micah Richards and Theo Walcott in those Victory Shield matches will be startled to find that, at the age of 21, Bagshaw is back in the Highland League with Formartine United.

“I don’t blame anyone about it, and I don’t think it is down to me not working hard, because I think if you ask any coach that I have worked with, they would all say that I have given 100% in training and in games,” Bagshaw said. “There is a part of me that thinks ‘I wish I had actually gone down to England and seen what it was like’. But if I was given the chance again I would probably still have signed for Aberdeen because they were my home-town team and I was doing really well then. I just think I’ve been very unlucky.”

Such ill luck has manifested itself in various different ways. The manager who took him to both Aberdeen and Peterhead, Steve Paterson, was sacked from both clubs shortly afterwards. Bagshaw is still only 5ft 7in tall, and as his contemporaries outgrew him, that strength on the ball which was such an asset at an early age only started to become an excuse to shunt him into midfield. His time at Balmoor was blighted by injury when the youngster was diagnosed with osteo­pubis, the same chronic groin cond-ition which has cruelly curtailed the career of young Celtic midfielder Charlie Grant. It is one symptom of playing too much football at a young age.

“Maybe I also played too many positions and didn’t get to stick to one, even though I felt I was an out-and-out striker,” Bagshaw said. “I thought my attitude was good enough to stay on at Aberdeen and I thought I was doing quite well but the manager [Jimmy Calderwood] had a tight budget and couldn’t afford to take chances with it. In Scotland you need people who could go straight from Under-19 football into the first team. The manager didn’t think I was ready so I had to say cheerio. Again Steve Paterson signed me for Peterhead, but he got sacked about four or five months into my contract and when Neale Cooper came in he obviously didn’t fancy me either.”

Formartine United, however, are no ordinary Highland League team. Chairman Atholl Cadger has bankrolled a squad which includes former Aberdeen players Phil McGuire and Jamie Winter alongside other countless northern footballing luminaries, and Bagshaw has at least one reason not to regard his footballing potential in the past tense. Another member of the Aberdeen youngsters left to rebuild his career in the Highland League is the same Paul Coutts who can now be seen holding down a midfield role in the Championship with Peterborough United and for Scotland Under-21s after being spotted playing for Cove Rangers by the former Peterborough manager Darren Ferguson.

“I have known Paul Coutts for about 10 years,” Bagshaw said. “We played together at Aberdeen Under-12s and he is a good friend. He was really small when he was at Aberdeen, but he has really filled out now. He always had great ability and I think he is a brilliant player. Hopefully I can get back playing again, get fit, and hopefully some bigger clubs will come to watch Highland league games and I might get a chance to go on trial again.”

Assuming his injury problems are a thing of the past (“I have had the injections and hopefully it will be all right now but if not I will need to get another two oper-ations to fix it,” he said) there is no reason why Bagshaw – who was a mainstay for his country right up to Under-19 level – cannot prove people equally wrong. What with his younger brother Callum now also coming through the ranks at Celtic, ability clearly runs in the family.

“Callum is a great player.” Bagshaw senior said. “He got offered the chance to play at Aberdeen but decided to go and play for Celtic, but whether it was anything to do with what happened to me I don’t know. Hopefully he will get to play in the SPL. Who knows, maybe I can still play against him up there some day.”